Romeo and Juliet

         Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous plays that Shakespeare has ever written. It has been a major influence on the movie industry and has been a prescribed texts on several school curriculums. It is easy to see why this play has stood the test of time and continues to captivate audiences for centuries. It strikes the very core of the human condition, the very them that caused man to sin and become fallen in Garden of Eden, desiring a forbidden item.
      This infatuation with the forbidden is what has concretized this play as a classic which cannot be easily equaled. Add the amazing word-smithing skills of William Shakespeare and crafting a plot that is tragic beyond compare, to the theme of wanting the forbidden, the result is a timeless piece of art. The star-cross'd lovers thing might be a bit clichéd now. But it becomes cliché because we just can't resist loving it.
      Humans are all about adaptation and conflict resolution. The entire human civilization has become what it is today because it has devised the solutions to seemingly insurmountable issues. This play focuses on that. Two young lovers who were never to fall in love because of a nasty family feud. Two young lovers who were never to fall in love because they were enemies. This insurmountable issue is not overcome, at least not the way one would expect. It ends tragically with both lovers dead and the feuding families wracked back and forth by grief like a stick by the ocean waves.
Does the tragic ending do the trick? Is it because of this tragic ending that the play has become timeless and unforgettable? Yes, it has. The plot is carefully weaved with many factors which contribute to the tragic denouement of the work but what is most striking is the choice Juliet makes at the end of the play.
        This ideal lover refuses to live without Romeo by her side so she commits suicide. Further, she is made an idol, almost a deity of ideal love by the promised resurrection of a golden statue of the girl. This play may come across as extreme and even stupid to some extent. The fast pace at which the events occur gives the play a sense of unrealism. However, the themes of ideal love, forbidden love, social prejudice, and forgiveness are powerfully rendered and mightily arrest the reader's attention. Why? Simply, because these issues have been contentious since the beginning of human civilization and who would be more fitting to use as vehicles through which to explore these issues than the nobles of society, the aristocrats, who are the most civilized.
           This play never gets old and its sophistication has made it a favourites among the literary scholars. There has been a new movie about this place, Romeo and Juliet 2013. Check it out and evaluate the originality or modern twists. God bless!